Fatherless
by Fanfiction Nerd
Summary: Harry has lost everyone in his life who's ever been a father to him. But maybe he'll find a semblance of one somewhere he'd have never expected. Set after HBP. Second chapter up! Please R&R!
1. Introduction

Harry entered the door of the Dursley's home with dread. His heart already felt like it couldn't bear any more stress, fear, or grief than what he had already suffered and now he was entering the least likely place where he could find relief. There was an aching void inside him where Dumbledore had once been. There was no promise at the end of this summer. Harry's entire vision of Hogwarts had been centered around everything that Dumbledore represented. Even with McGonagall as headmistress nothing would ever be the same.

As soon as he turned seventeen and the spell that bound him to the Dursley's was broken, he knew he would fly from them like he'd never flown before. He'd already planned it all. He would steal out of the house on his broomstick, doing whatever magic he had to in order to remain safe and hidden until he reached the Weasley's. Expulsion didn't mean anything anymore. The life he had known at Hogwarts was a shadow and a memory now. O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s seemed like petty stupid trifles now. Looking back he could hardly understand how he had spent so much effort and stress concerning himself over them. He should have found out from Slughorn sooner. He should have found more Horcruxes…He should have done everything and anything that he could have to stop what happened on the tower that night from happening. His body still felt frozen there…Watching.

"Mind the carpet!" Petunia's voice barked as she whipped around the corner of the corridor into the living room, hardly taking notice that he was home. He realized he'd been standing in the doorway a bit too long. Vernon had already thundered ahead of him and Harry could hear him in the next room rumbling around and pouring himself a glass of port.

Pulling his trunk behind him, he closed the door stepping into the coolness of the air conditioned house. He dragged his trunk up the stairs behind him thudding steadily. He went into his room and sat down on his bed. He looked up at Hedwig's empty cage. She was off delivering letters to Ginny, Ron, and Hermione and at a time when he felt he needed a companion more than anything else in the world, he was alone.

When Sirius had died all hope wasn't lost. Even though the grief had been overwhelming he still had some sort of parent there watching over him. Dumbledore had always been a sort of paternal guard to him. Watching him, counseling him, and keeping him safe when things seemed impossibly bleak. And now…there was no one. The world felt horribly empty in Harry's little room as he stared out over the hundreds of identical rooftops of the homes on Privet drive and beyond.


	2. Baggage

Petunia always had hated the boy. From the moment his tiny form had appeared on our doorstep. With a white tense face she'd read the letter accompanying him. I'd held him in my arms. He was so small, smaller than most babies of his age. A blood-crusted gash on his forehead. He'd slept a deep calm sleep for most of the day that he'd arrived. As though somehow drained and exhausted from something. Petunia refused to speak much about what the letter contained when the child first arrived. She explained that her sister, Lily (whom I'd never met, knowing her and Petunia had a falling out in years past), had died thanks to her wild lifestyle, that her husband had as well and that the boy was ours now to care for. I obviously pressed her for more but her mouth became an impossibly thin line and I knew our conversation was over.

Now rather than just Dudley to care for, we had two. Our son, the bouncing baby boy and then Harry, who Petunia refused to acknowledge as a boy, but merely a _thing_, foisted upon us. She wanted to put him in the cupboard under the stairs in a wood crate but I reasoned with her to use the spare room and bassinet that Dudley had broken the gate on. I tied the gate back with some twine and he got Dudley's old infancy blankets and baby clothes. I couldn't understand why Petunia seemed so troubled by the child. Surely no matter what her sister had been involved in she could understand that the child was not to blame for this outcome.

It wasn't until weeks later when all the owls stopped being seen by daylight and strange looking people stopped appearing on the streets that she finally explained more of the boy's past to me. His parents, her sister, had been involved in witchcraft. Sorcery. Her sister had developed skills in magic at a young age and had been whisked away to a school somewhere far off from which she returned each summer stranger than she had before, until her little playmate from childhood had become a quite different woman indeed. Her parents treasured her abnormalities far more than they did Petunia's perfect ordinariness. They much preferred to see Lily turning teapots into turnips than Petunia's perfect marks in all her classes. And no matter how Petunia tried she would never be more than ordinary. Just a common _muggle_, as Lily had called her disdainfully during many a row in her summer months at home.

Lily had disappeared altogether from Petunia's life once they both left home. Petunia had received a sort of peace offering a few years back in the form of an invitation to Lily's wedding, and to be a bridesmaid. But she was to be wed to another freak who she'd met at that school of hers. And Petunia refused to be seen with such a group of people. Now Lily'd been murdered. Her and her husband both killed in their home right before Harry's eyes. _By some mad wizard_, Petunia scoffed when I pressed her as to who could have done such a thing. I couldn't believe all that I was hearing but somehow something strange like this was what I was expecting to hear. With the owls swooping by my window and the falling stars… And as much as I understood there was deep resentment toward Lily in Petunia's heart, I couldn't understand how she could hate Harry. He was an innocent in all of this. A bystander to a crime.

"He'll become one of them." Petunia spat. "Just like her. And then he'll send a load of mad murderous wizards on the warpath for us. I don't need it Vernon. I wont live with it all again. We have a son. A normal lovely son. Harry's just baggage. We can keep him alive Vernon, we owe him that in human decency. But I won't let him become another one of them."

That night I lay awake in bed for hours, even after Petunia, who had been tossing and turning for a fortnight. I stared through half closed eyes at the shadows on the plaster ceiling. Murder…Sorcery. In my mind I knew Harry was purely innocent…I couldn't help but wonder if Petunia was right. Would the boy bring trouble with him? Those strange people in the streets seemed to know him and his family by name. What if they were dangerous? I thought of little Dudley sleeping in the crib in the next room. I couldn't bear to see my only boy at the mercy of obviously ruthless killers, which they seemed to be based on what Petunia had said. But we couldn't throw Harry into the street. He was legally ours to guard over. So silently to myself, I agreed that though Harry was innocent, we could not allow him to become a wizard, and under any circumstances, in order to protect ourselves from his kind, we would push the magic out of him and then raise him as a normal boy.


End file.
